Things That Were Missed in the Clamour for Calm

Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

Things That Were Missed in the Clamour for Calm is a composed soundscape created from field recordings made in Sri Lanka in 2013. The work was the result of a six-week residency at Sura Medura, Hiikaduwa on the South West coast of the country but includes recordings made across the country. The CD is released by the Hungarian label 3Leaves and includes a beautiful 12-page colour booklet in a black die-cut card sleeve designed by Ákos Garai in a limited edition of 200 copies.
Includes unlimited streaming of Things That Were Missed in the Clamour for Calm
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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edition of 200

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Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.Download also includes a pdf of the CD release booklet.

£5GBP or more

about

"Things That Were Missed in the Clamour for Calm is a single 54-minute suite of music and sound, created from field recordings fetched by Mark Vernon on his travels in Sri Lanka.

Through his methods, Vernon creates swooping, eerie and powerful music — music which forms itself out of natural sounds, then changes itself back again, all in a seamless and entirely appropriate manner. The effect on the listener is like watching a documentary film of Sri Lanka which suddenly changes, for example shifting into negative or over-exposed stock, multiple exposures, unusual lens filters, focus settings...disrupting the sense of temporal continuity we've enjoyed thus far, and demanding that we now appreciate this experience as pure sound. But it also passes on a very dream-like effect. It's as though Vernon himself were hallucinating about Sri Lanka, and passing his strange visions into the sound. Hardly five minutes of Clamour for Calm passes by without one of these uncanny time-shifts taking over, transporting us into a bizarre, slightly menacing, impression, an impression of a country (or an entire world) that never existed.

The title of this work, Things That Were Missed in the Clamour for Calm, may of course lead the listener to expect something quite different — it implies that there are everyday sound events which we overlook all too easily, and that there's an interest in escaping the noise pollution of urban life, perhaps through listening to natural sounds with more attention. Both of these are perfectly plausible sentiments, and indeed they constitute articles of faith for many field recordists. But I think this album is primarily a work of imagination, a testament to Mark Vernon's creative strengths and abilities; he doesn't just document, but he thinks long and hard about the documents he captures, and then is able to use his studio skills to refashion them sympathetically, thereby revealing new truths about the world. "

Ed Pinsent

Reviews:

“… a fascinating psycho-musico-geographical composition.”
Textura

“It’s as if through some magic stroke, Vernon is able to get humans and animals to act in unison to create a wonderful musical composition.”
Hal Harmon, Musique Machine

“This is the noise we want.”
A Closer Listen

“It's as though Vernon himself were hallucinating about Sri Lanka, and passing his strange visions into the sound.”
Ed Pinsent, Sound Projector

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Mark VernonGlasgow, UK

Mark Vernon is a sound artist and radio producer based in Glasgow, Scotland. His solo albums include: 'Static Cinema'
(Entr'acte 2012), 'Sounds of the Modern Hospital' (meagre resource 2014), 'Things That Were Missed in the Clamour for Calm'(3Leaves 2015) and 'Lend an Ear, Leave a Word' (Kye 2016). He also records and performs in the duo Vernon & Burns (Gagarin, Staalplaat, Ultra Eczema)....more